Linux at the Embedded Systems Conference 2002

At ESC in San Francisco, Rick finds that embedded Linux isn't “news” anymore.

The Embedded Systems Conference (ESC)
held in San Francisco during the week of March 11, 2002 was
expected to draw over 15,000 attendees from all facets of the
embedded systems market. And, despite the much slower than expected
economic conditions, event organizers reported that attendance
reached around 12,000. Even with the attenuated turnout, this
year's ESC product and technology expo was the largest ever,
occupying two large halls in the sprawling Moscone Convention
Center complex.

From the embedded Linux perspective, the really
big news this year is that embedded Linux
isn't news anymore! Embedded Linux is now universally counted among
the top three “must-have” embedded OSes, which virtually all
embedded hardware (chips, boards, systems), middleware,
applications and tools must support. The other two are generally
VxWorks and one or another flavor of Windows Embedded. Beyond
embedded Linux, VxWorks and Windows Embedded, it now appears that
all the other embedded OSes have been lumped into the nondescript
category of “other” and are supported only when a major customer
is willing to provide the funding or purchase commitment.

Here, then, are some highlights from ESC 2002 San Francisco,
from the embedded Linux perspective.

Embedded Linux Consortium Kicks Off Embedded
Linux Platform Standard

The Embedded Linux Consortium held an open technical meeting
on March 12, during which the two-year-old group moved beyond its
initial role of primarily evangelizing the adoption of embedded
Linux to one of starting to create a unified embedded Linux
platform specification (ELC Platform Spec). There were over 125
attendees, and although no sign-in sheet was circulated, the RSVPs
reportedly included representatives of some of the world's largest
and most influential software, semiconductor and electronics
companies, including HP, Hitachi, IBM, Intel, Microsoft, Motorola,
Panasonic, Samsung, Sharp, Sony, Texas Instruments, Toshiba and
Wind River.

Some observers have complained that the process of moving the
ELC Platform Spec forward is going far too slowly to be useful to
the market, while others are glad that a proper foundation (the
Intellectual Property Agreement, or IPA) is now in place, allowing
large corporations to participate fully in the spec development
process. In any case, the ELC's initial bylaws prohibited standards
development activities, so a formal document was certainly
necessary to enable this important change to the group's
charter.

The ELC has now formed its first working group, chartered to
develop the new ELC Platform Spec, and is encouraging volunteers to
join the efforts of finalizing the spec with an eye toward a 1.0
release by the end of 2002. Proposals for other working groups,
having orientations such as real-time Linux, security, wireless
APIs, high availability, device drivers, etc., have also been
solicited by the ELC
(www.embedded-linux.org).

A Quick Tour of the ESC Vendor Expo

A total of 39 companies listed themselves under the category
of embedded Linux in the ESC show guide. Here is a sampling of some
of the many embedded Linux-oriented demonstrations, technologies
and products that I found at the show.

Arizona Cooperative Power
(www.azpower.com): (in
Hitachi's booth) Rob Wehrli demonstrated µClinux running on a
new Hitachi H8S-2148AF development platform. Wehrli says the board
is “especially designed for µClinux...and is intended to
make it easy for educators, students and companies to explore
µClinux running on the H8S without incurring a hefty
equipment expense.” It is based on a 33MHz H8S-2674R and includes
8MB of SDRAM, 4MB of Flash and a 10Mbits/s Ethernet port, and will
be sold for $199 US.

China MobileSoft
(www.chinamobilesoft.com):
made their first appearance in North America at ESC 2002, where
they demonstrated mLinux, their embedded Linux distribution. They
also showcased their embedded Linux GUI (mGUI) and microbrowser
(mBrowser). Prior to the recent opening of a sales office in the
US, MobileSoft's business has been focused on manufacturers of
smartphones, PDAs and set-top boxes in China and Taiwan.

Lineo
(www.lineo.com): held a
press conference to announce several new partnerships and
strategies associated with the set-top box, residential gateway and
handheld computer markets. One interesting announcement was of a
new Linux-based PDA (the Kaii, mentioned briefly in last month's
column), which is being developed in India and has a software stack
similar to that of the Sharp Zaurus. Lineo explained that they are
in the process of repositioning their products and resources around
three key markets: smart handhelds, digital media and residential
gateways. This theme was reflected in the company's ESC booth
demos, which were much more oriented toward application-specific
solutions than generalized tools.

LynuxWorks
(www.lynuxworks.com):
announced the release of LynxOS version 4.0, which is said to
feature Linux ABI compatibility. This means that LynxOS, a
proprietary real-time operating system (RTOS) that previously
offered a high degree of API compatibility with Linux (allowing it
to run certain Linux applications after recompilation), should now
be able to run some unmodified Linux binaries. Linux programs
demonstrated running (unmodified) on LynxOS included the Opera
browser and Quake. Note that this capability
apparently requires that the Linux applications use dynamically
linked libraries, since special versions of glibc library functions
are required. LynuxWorks calls such programs “well-behaved
applications” and points out that the LSB requires dynamic linking
of libraries.

Microtronix
(www.microtronix.com):
(in Altera's booth) demonstrated a Linux-based board support
package for Altera's ARM-based Excalibur development kit, which
allows development of multiprocessor systems combining Altera's
Excalibur hard-core “stripe” along with one or more of Altera's
Nios soft-core embedded processors in the programmable logic
portion of the device. The Microtronix support includes a
multiprocessing mezzanine board with multiple expansion headers to
support Ethernet and display adapter cards.

MontaVista Software
(www.mvista.com): had
their usual large pavilion with numerous hardware/software demos,
including the MontaVista High Availability Framework, the Visual
Age Micro Edition Java VM equipped with a Java AWT based on
Qt/Embedded, a digital set-top box reference design based on IBM's
PowerPC 405GP processor, MontaVista Linux running on the Sharp
Zaurus PDA and a demo of the latest real-time features (and
supported processors) of MontaVista Linux version 2.1. One really
cool demo was of a real-live Linux-powered soft-drink vending
machine (the USA Technologies ePort), powered by a RadiSys
StrongARM-based embedded SBC running MontaVista Linux. MontaVista
also announced the receipt of an equity investment from Panasonic
Digital Concepts Center (PDCC), a subsidiary of Matsushita Electric
Industrial Co., Ltd.

REDSonic
(www.redsonic.com):
showed the capabilities of RED-Builder, their GUI-based embedded
Linux Image Creator and Integrated Development Environment (IDE),
demonstrating the point-and-click simplicity of using it to build,
download and debug complete, small footprint Linux systems for a
wide range of embedded targets. Target platforms demonstrated
included Ampro's EnCore 500 (x86), ITE 8152EVB (StrongARM) and MIPS
32-bit Malta Board. REDSonic also demonstrated SecureSOHO, a
software stack for resource-constrained, Linux-based
gateway/firewall devices, which provides extensive networking and
security features along with an easy-to-use end-user
configuration/control interface.

RidgeRun
(www.ridgerun.com):
(in Texas Instruments' booth) demonstrated DSPLinux, an embedded
Linux distribution and toolkit for TI's dual-core (RISC/DSP)
system-on-chip processors. At ESC, RidgeRun announced that they
have added dynamic linking support to µClibc. Previously,
developers of systems based on MMU-less processors (e.g., ARM7) had
hesitated to use embedded Linux due to concerns about the ability
to keep their application code proprietary for various reasons,
such as partner licensing agreements or protecting trade secrets.
Dynamically linking to the LGPL-licensed µClibc libraries
eliminates that problem. The new µClibc dynamic link support
is being made available as part of a new board support package for
TI's TMS320VC5471 dual-core processor.

Vitals System
(www.vitals.co.kr):
(in Samsung's booth) demonstrated its family of vLinux Developer
Packages, which are reference designs for Samsung's ARM7- and
ARM9-based system-on-chip processors. The platforms include full
source code and schematics, are sold for a one-time fee (without
royalties) and are meant to provide turnkey designs for wireless
LAN access points, SOHO routers and wireless LAN ADSL modem
routers.

TimeSys
(www.timesys.com):
despite the stormy economy, rode a wave of good news to ESC,
announcing the receipt of $15.5 million funding and issuing a press
release declaring “Pioneer of Embedded Systems Software Poised to
Assume Industry Leadership Role”. Their booth featured four demos
that showcased their board support packages (BSPs), which include
support for the TimeSys Linux/GPL Embedded Linux distro and
associated toolchains, Windows cross-hosting support, plus add-ons
for real-time performance, quality-of-service CPU reservations and
real-time networking, running on a variety of processor
architectures (x86, ARM, MIPS, PowerPC, UltraSPARC, XScale, SuperH)
and SBCs. The company also announced several new BSPs and promised
a steady stream of additional ones on an ongoing basis.